I survived the morning rush of registrants at mesh conference in Toronto, and
I’m now listening to the keynote conversation between Mark Evans and Om Malik. I missed the main part, but fortunately Scott Karp liveblogged it.

Here are fragments of what I’ve heard:

85% market share. That demographic hasn’t figured out how to block
ads. This is a highly skewed argument. Mainstream users don’t bother
with these things. They can download software to block ads, but nobody
does that. People actually click on ads. I’m surprised by the number
of people who click on my Google ads.

What do you write for the National Post audience? What do you write about for the Net?
Newspapers – facts. Blogs does spin, opinion. That’s where the value is added.
We can’t just look at blogs or podcasts as just a digital version of news. We need to build loyalty.
build a different voice online.

When you write a story for a magazine, in reality, once it’s inside a
magazine, the story is over. But the story never ends. The story never
dies. You have to follow it. … Whenever we write a story inside a
magazine, we can’t use follow-up information in a month’s time. If they don’t care from me, then maybe I haven’t engaged their mind. That’s very critical. This community aspect.

Three years from now, I see something like the Wall Street Journal
saying, “These bloggers are pretty good.” … give them the
credibility. ZDnet is already doing that. They’re bringing in a lot of
bloggers, figuring out a game plan. You will see all the big media, or
at least the bigger media, actually experimenting and creating their
own blog.

Every user comes with their finger poised on the Back button. As long as you’re worried about that, you have to do great stuff. Bloggers – contextual reading. You will never capture the big story in 800 words. Don’t think of it as traditional reading. It’s almost like a

Mark: What do you see yourself doing three years from now? Om: As long
as they keep paying me well… It’s fairly simple. (more discussion)

Boris Mann: I probably wouldn’t know about either of you if you didn’t
have blogs. I don’t ever go to these websites. I don’t click through.
Everyone who has fulltext RSS feeds, I read directly in my reader.
Blogs are conversations. I can’t have a discussion with the National
Post. Om: Good to finally meet you in person, and thank you for
sending all those comments. You are as important to me as any other
person. … It creats patrons, and patrons are good for advertising,
but we don’t have a good advertising model. All these questions are in
front of us. That’s a challenge, and that’s an opportunity for anyone
who can figure this out. Anyone who can think of a good advertising
model right now can make a lot of money.

Putting my e-mail address at the bottom of the story isn’t having a
conversation. Whether you’re a newspaper online or .., you need to
create a conversation. You need to use the Web and different tools to
draw people in. It’s a nice little phrase: “Let’s have a
conversation”, but the truth is that’s going to drive your business.

Web 2.0. It’s not a technology. It’s not some cool Javascript. It’s a new way of thinking.
Robert Scoble – he helped humanize Microsoft, for goodness’ sake. Just one guy, and he did such an effective job.